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Perception is everything.

Posted by Scott Tribe on November 27, 2007, at 9:00 pm |

I still don’t know what to make of this whole Mulroney/Schreiber business and whether it will hurt the Cons or not. However, for a government that supposedly has nothing to do with this affair, it sure is giving off the appearance of having something to hide, when the Justice Minister refuses to use his power to prevent or stay Schreiber’s extradition (or more comically, pretends he doesn’t have the power to do so when every legal opinion out there says he does), which causes this almost unprecedented legal move by the Speaker:

The Speaker of the House of Commons has issued a rare warrant compelling Karlheinz Schreiber to appear at a committee hearing Thursday to discuss his business dealings with former prime minister Brian Mulroney… The archaic legal process — last used in 1913 — could have been avoided if Nicholson had instructed officials to follow the original commons directive, issued last week. “It ought to be straight-forward,” Rob Walsh, the impartial Commons legal counsel told MPs on the ethics committee today. “It’s within the power of the justice minister. It’s his call. It’s his judgment.”

Nicholson however, is doing a “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” routine with Parliament over this.

As I said, when the government and the Justice Minister are going to such great lengths to avoid Schreiber being here to testify, you have to wonder what it is they don’t want people to hear. If the government has nothing to do with any of this affair, at the very least, Nicholson and the Cons have brought a lot of rather unnecessary attention and suspicion to themselves by their actions, or lack thereof.

6 comments to Perception is everything.

Just for the record, Otto Jelinek was never finance minister in Brian Mulroney’s or any other government.
A broader question now than whether Screber stays or goes is whether the Harper government still wants a full-blown judicial inquiry. There’s not much doubt in my mind that Harper was snookered into this by Mulroney and he and Nicholson are desperately trying to figure a way to get out of it. All they have to do is follow Jean Chretien’s advice and turn the whole mess over to the cops.

It’s true that the Justice Minister’s refusal to use powers he CLEARLY has is (somewhat) comical. It’s somewhat less comical that he’s pretending not to have said powers at all. Also, I’m just slightly concerned (just SLIGHTLY) that the Minister isn’t deliberately running interference for Mr. Mulroney, but that he actually DOESN’T UNDERSTAND HIS OWN POWERS!!! I’d say this would be so ridiculous as to be impossible (he must be running interference, as I refuse to believe that our Minister of Justice and Attorney General is that ignorant).

Unfortunately, we’re left with two uncomfortable possibilities. One, the Justice Minister of Canada and Attorney General is running interference for a political fellow traveller, and blatantly lying to Parliament with regards to his powers and perogatives in order to do so. Or two, Canad’as Justice Minister/Attorney General is being sincere in his pronouncements… and he’s just an idiot.

Oh, joy.

I’ve said before that I’m not really that angered when politicians openly lie to us and show contempt for Parliament. That they’re so often (as in this case) SO BAD AT IT is what really grinds my gears. Go ahead, lie to me. But make it CREDIBLE. Do it with some finesse. Don’t tell me a lie that can’t even stand up to 10 seconds of scrutiny. That’s just bad form.

Also, Ron, we "never raised an eyebrow" over Adscam??? You haven’t heard of the Gomery Inquiry??? It was in all the papers. I’ve got to ask, if a Liberal Justice Minister had tried to keep a witness from appearing before a Parliamentary Committee investigating Adscam by claiming (both falsely, and LAUGHABLY) that he didn’t have the power to get the witness to appear before the committee (because, apparently, the Minister of Justice has very little sway over the MINISTRY OF JUSTICE, LOL) how long do you suppose that person could have remained Justice Minister?

I "bumped into" some extraordinary information on the airbus scandals going on in Europe that tried desperately hard to keep a lid on. And surprise! Mulroney’s ex Finance Minister, Otto Jelinek’s name is appearing in the European press as the man on the ground who was funneling kickback money on airbus scams. Just do a google on "Otto Jelinek" .. I have no "proof" yet that this is intertwined, but I am certain that certain Liberals are onto this by NOW.

We are talking HUGE amounts of kickbacks, money laundering, accusations of drug running and so in the background: in fact, Lyndon LaRouche calls this the SCANDAL of the century.

Arms dealing always had sordidness connected. ALWAYS.

I think The Harper and the Alberta oil boyz are sweating in their tracksuits like CRAZY wondering who knows what. It would certainly explain their aggressive stance and desire to get an election over with so that they are back in when the Big News hits.

There is some information on my blog about it all – which is SO intensive (and I do other posts!) that I have to run it all in installments.

There is another blog, http://www.dandelgeit.blogspot.com that has made certain allegations about Mr. Mulroney, Harper and the RCMP but I cannot definitely say I know it to be truth. There are some STRANGE goings on with that information.

All I CAN say with some authority is that many are playing all their cards close to their chests as yet .. and the media is covering up or in total ignorance of what the European press is saying and looking the other way towards the BAE scandal which cannot be subdued by the Brits.

Ron – if you are so concerned about parliament being toxic, I suggest you look at the conservatives. Do you think it is an accident that this occurs on their watch?How many attack ads did Chretien run against Manning, Day or Harper between elections?As for the predictable reference to Adscam – keep it up. People are getting more bored with Adscam being a defence to all conservative misbehaviour as time goes on.

Perception is obviously in the eye of the preceivor – I preceive an opposition so bent on gaining political points that it will twist and prevert the entire justice system, the entire parlimentary system just to achieve its objective. We are now faced with a situation where parliment is so toxic and members on all sides are spewing hatred and vindictive bitterness over something that happened 15 years ago, spurred on by a wanted felon desperately trying to avoid extradition; the opposition has wedded themselves to this person, willing to prevert justice, willing to corrupt all of the institutions simply to gain a point or two in the polls. Whether Mulroney took 300 thou or not is not that big of a deal. Liberals took millions and you folks never raised an eyebrow. What you are doing to the political system of this country in the name of regaining power is dispicable. I would say shame on you but I have no doubt, shame is not a feeling you are familiar with. I am one of the many who are totally disgusted with our political system, process, and leadership. This witch hunt is the very reason for that. That is how I preceive it.

I agree with you comments, and wonder what the Cons and Harper are doing while everyone is preoccupied with these events. The procedures and rules that govern parliament and how well our politicians understand them and their use is what will prevail in the end. The Conservatives either do nave a good grasp of the rules and procedure or worst yet, they believe they can get away with their interpretation.
Their arrogance is only surpassed by their continued dismisive attittude to what the professional civil servants who advise them on as is the example of Rob Walsh.

There will certainly be many surprises as the committee moves forward and the public inquiry is finally structured and proceeds.